Budget Stripper or Wood/Canvas Builds: How to Save Costs

[Glenn MacGrady]

I believe that there are financial, tooling, shop space, and time costs that deter many people from building their own stripper or wood/fabric canoes.

"Yeah, building seems kind of interesting but":
- "I don't want to spend the money on expensive or hard-to-find cedar/ash/mahogany/brass/copper/canvas/filler/whatever."
- "I don't have all those fancy forms, strongbacks, table saws, band saws, circular saws, routers, sanding machines, clamps, pulleys, come-alongs, whatever."
- "I don't have a shop in my house."
- "I'm busy and have a family and don't have hundreds of hours to spend on a big project like a canoe."

Your mission, members, should you choose to accept it, is to reply to one or more of these excuses by explaining how a canoe can be built on a low or inexpensive budget of materials, tools, space and/or time.

"Should you or any member of your CTN team be caught or killed, the administrator will disavow all knowledge of your actions."

 

[Gamma1214]

OK; Although I'm just starting my second stripper build, I'll attempt to address the above concerns.

Cost: I'm not flush with cash (I drive a '94 Ranger because I hate car payments not because I like fixing the stupid thing) but stripper builds don't have to be expensive. I'm building with local woods rather than Cedar because Cedar is expensive (and slow growing so it won't replace itself in my lifetime). I built my 1st with Aspen that cost 75 cents a board foot (I'd estimate about 70 brd ft were used) and I just bought 200 brd ft of clear white pine for $1 / board foot (for my 3rd build but enough wood for at least 2 boats). These woods are heavier than Cedar but the cost offsets the weight penalty nicely as far as I'm concerned. Use rough cut wood from a local saw mill and you'll save enough to pay for the epoxy (at least).

Shop equipment: I outfitted the shop with band saw and shaper for about $300 (used on marketplace) and befriended a woodworker to help with seats. He's keeping an eye out for a jointer and table saw / dado blade set-up for me and seems optimistic that, with patience, we can find serviceable ones for under $200. At that point, I'll have less than $700 in all the shop tools including bits, blades and strongbacks. Admittedly, not chump change but a heckova lot cheaper than one might expect. The trick (IMO) is to be patient and look for the right deal not the first deal...

Shop space: You wouldn't really need a shop at your house although that's ideal. I build in the upstairs of a buddy's garage about 4 miles from me. I could also build in my carport if I wanted to wait until the weather warmed a bit and / or didn't mind one of the neighborhood feral cats walking in the fresh epoxy. We build where we can & sometimes we need to get creative (or trash the dining room carpet if you're single and the boat fits)

Time: Most of the time, I'm busier than a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest but we make the time for what's important to us. I've watched many builds on here that have taken over a year. Not because it takes that long to build one but simply because life gets in the way sometimes. In the end, it comes down to priorities and, perhaps, how badly you want to try it.

Which reminds me of my all-time favorite Henry Ford quote: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't- you're right."

 

[scratchypants]

The biggest hurdle for me was fear of failure. I spent a long time wondering whether or not building a cedar strip was something I would be capable of doing. I've given up on a lot of pursuits because I just didn't find them interesting/rewarding enough to justify the effort (learning guitar, for instance) - that's me.

I'm lucky that I have an interior space, but once I got past that initial block, I would have found a way to make it work regardless. Most home-owners would already have the necessary tools. I ended up having to buy clamps (Princess Auto - Canada's Harbor Freight). The biggest expense for me was the epoxy kit (West Systems was $620 for the kit, the East Systems was cheaper but still expensive). I buy my wood from an amateur who runs a Wood-Mizer in his spare time. I think I paid $120 for enough cedar for 2 builds.

Now having built 2, I can say that there is enough (just enough in the case of sanding) variation in the various steps to hold my interest: Building the strongback, tracing/cutting forms, setup, etcetera.

I guess my point is that if you need a canoe, there are cheaper/easier ways to go about it. I built a cedar strip because I wanted to.

 

[Robin]

I never built a wood canvas canoe from scratch so I can’t really speak to that, but I have restored a few.
1. Get the book “This Old Canoe” by Mike Elliot, in my opinion it’s has the best step by step information on restoring a wood canvas canoe.
2. You don’t need a lot of tools, a used $45 dollar Craftsman table saw with a sharp blade has served me well for many years. A electric or battery powered drill, lots of small drill bits, a belt sander, (3x21”), a quarter sander, a skill saw, a Japanese saw, a
small tack hammer, a cliniching iron for the tacks and a tack puller. An orbital sander is helpful but I used a 1/4 sander for most sanding. Six or more clamps, I use Irwin Quick Grip clamps. C clamps are good also. A shop vacuum cleaner is helpful. If you do your own canvassing, one come along, a couple of cables or chains and some home made “clothes pin clamps” (explained in the book mentioned above), and an anchoring system, many one time restorers use trees, cars, or more permanent anchors to stretch the canvas. Two easy to make wooden saw horses (YouTube)
3. To save money, I would make my own ribs from a piece of cedar on the table saw. Same with gunnels, I’d search Craigslist or Marketplace for material and make my own out of ash or spruce. YouTube taught me to make a jig for my table saw to make long splices. Planking is best bought from a professional imo. Mike’s excellent book will teach you how to cane a seat and he gives you the recipe to make your own canvass “filler”, both big money savers for a DIY restoration. Don’t buy expensive paint brushes, 6” foam rollers for canvas paint, with a 4” (quailty) foam brush to follow up the foam roller (tip). Do buy quality paint and varnish. 2” foam brush for interior varnish works for me.
4. I used a single car garage, my basement and even worked in my driveway back in the day before I had a shop. Today I even prefer to do maintenance and painting outside even though I have a heated shop.

 

[JohnSand]

I've built a kayak, a sailing dinghy and a rowboat. While all were cheaper than buying new, none were cheaper than buying used. The point of building a boat is the challenge and reward of making and using your own homebuilt boat. Launch day is priceless.
There are quicker and cheaper canoe builds, Skin On Frame or origami plywood.

 

[Jim Dodd]

Saving time and money, building a canoe ?
Well a stripper is out of the question !
A Skin on frame canoe, might be an option, but a plywood canoe, can be built in a day, or at least what they say.
A Plywood canoe would require the least amount.
A simple search will find what you want.
I have 4 sheets of Okume Marine plywood, at the canoe shop, 2, 3 mill, and 2, 4 mill.
They have been there for at least 20 years.
I have some Kevlar cloth, waiting for a male mold.
That is likely my next build.
Just need a mold, that I would like to use.

Jim

 

[Alan Gage]

A circular saw, jig saw, belt sander, random orbital sander, drill, and some misc odds and ends would be all you need for tools to build a stripper. That's what I did my first one with. I bought pre-cut strips but now that I know Jim's circular saw method of cutting strips (and gunwales) then it would be easy to rip planks into strips. If someone is interested in building their own canoe then they're probably interested in building/repairing other things as well so those tools will be used many times for many projects.

Admittedly I haven't built a canoe in about 5 years so I'm sure material costs have gone up but I seem to remember a basic build being around $600 for cedar, cloth, resin, and trim. Many of us have successfully built many canoes with lower cost resins like RAKA or US composites. I'm sure West Systems is better but I never saw the reason to spend the extra money. Many people have successfully built (and heavily used) hulls with a single layer of 6 oz glass inside and out. Even 4 ounces is not a problem for hulls that will see easier use. Less layers or lighter cloth will also require less resin.

Gamma had good advice. If you have the will you'll find a way. It's not a difficult task to build a strip canoe. I had no woodworking experience when I started my first one and figured it was 50/50 that I'd end up with a completed/serviceable hull. It turned out to be much easier than I thought. I used a poorly lit corner of my dad's shop.

If you just want a serviceable boat then building your own is not the best option. You can find something used that will fill the bill.

If you want a specific hull design that is either not available or is cost prohibitive then building is a great option (assuming you can get plans that fit your needs).

Or, if you just think it would be fun and rewarding to build something yourself rather than buying something commercially it's the obvious choice but, of course, cost probably isn't your main consideration at that point.

Alan

 

[RickR]

Disclaimer: I've built one stripper and took 3 and a half years to complete it.

That being said, building a canoe was probably the most joyful, educational, pleasurable and satisfying project I've ever done.

I had wanted to build a stripper for many years, but never had space to devote to it. When space became available I dove in. If you're able to build in a space where you can control temperature it's a huge advantage and will streamline your timeline. I didn't have that. When I had the time it was often too cold. No worries, just takes longer. Significant time can be saved by purchasing seats and thwarts.

I've been a self employed carpenter for 41 years and have the tools to show for it. It's remarkable though, how few tools are necessary to build a stripper. A skilsaw and router table set up will get you strips. You'll need a drill and after that an orbital sander is helpful but not essential. I faired the hull exterior by hand with a long board and it came out well. One of the unexpected pleasures of my build was the discovery that hand tools were often the most practical and efficient. A pull saw, block plane and sharp chisel go a long way.

I spent close to $1500 on my build (West System and S glass were premiums) including tools which I didn't own (36 2 inch spring clamps, carbide paint scraper, longboard etc.). I have enough cedar and ash left over for another canoe though. When you're sourcing uncommon materials it's easy to end up with more than needed for the task at hand. For instance, I bought a 21 foot ash board for gunwales that has at least 3 more canoes in it.

Building a strip canoe makes sense to my mind if it's an experience you want to have (you can't mentally pay yourself for your time). For the cost of a used canoe you can obtain a boat customized to your needs and enjoy the unrivaled satisfaction of paddling a canoe that you built.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I never built a wood canvas canoe from scratch so I can’t really speak to that, but I have restored a few.

“Given one rib, I could build a canoe around it – that's no problem.” — Rollin Thurlow

 

[Roybrew]

I just finished my 2nd stripper. I used mainly, sawmill, air dried poplar 50 cents/bdft.
-70$ skill saw to cut strips.
-An inexpensive used router 50$ with a home made router table, nothing fancy.
- orbital sander 70$
- pull saw, under 20$ which I use a lot.
- Jig saw under 50$.
A person can get buy with out a table saw. I think I mentioned the majority of tools needed, at least the costly ones.
A lot of lumber cost depends on what and how you build your forms and strong back, and what you can scavenge. Other then cost of tools and strong back
- Forms, 2 each of 4' x 8' plywood 50$ each.
- Lumber for strips 150$ +
- Fiberglass 6oz Eglass 17 yards for a 16 ft canoe? This was Us Composite, pretty average cost. 130$ and what ever shipping cost is
Epoxy kit

Glue, sand paper, staples, screws, bolts and polyurethane. Under a hundred bucks. And make your own seats, thwarts and gunnels. I think I spent about 30$ for seat strap material.


This is hard to add up, a lot depends on what tools you already have, your knowledge of wood working, what you can scavenge for free or cheap, how creative you can be and what you can deem as acceptable results.
An average 16 foot strip canoe for under a thousand bucks if you have the tools and strong back.
Roy

 

[Thestripper]

I think the hull material can be a huge saving. Depending upon your location, WRC or NWC might be obtainable for a resonable price. This is not at all the case where I am so I simply went with cheap Spruce cladding (picea abies) for my Kite. I cut the strips with a circular saw on my strongback. It took one afternoon. The spruce worked great to build with but it does have a many knots. It was a pretty easy operation to cut those out from the strips with a long miter cut on the miter saw with a sinmple home made jig and then scarf joint full length strips together with wood glue before stapling full legth strips to the forms. I didn't take out all the knots just the big or gnarly ones. The weight of my canoe is resonable and could be made a lot lighter if you find less dense spruce. Don't knock spruce as building material if it's available to you. It is in fact stronger And lighter than WRC in some cases. It's not as pretty though.

Not using bead & cove strips will skip the need for some tools (router bits, router, router table with in and out feed tables and an open space more than twice the length of your longest strips). Stripping with square strips might sound intimidating for some but it's really not difficult at all. You will need a sharp low angle block plane or similar tool to match the angle of the strips where they meet. Not much planing needed on each strip to make them fit against the previous one. A strip only takes a few minutes to prepare once you get the hang of it. A so called robo-bevel is not a needed tool in my opinion. At least I never missed having one when stripping my canoe.

If you don't already own a lot of spring clamps/D-clamps or other suitable design this could be a somewhat costly investment. Cut PVC pipes can substitute clamps in some cases but I really don't know how good they work. I used 50 clamps on the boat when gluing the gunwales. You might get away with less, especially if you are using screws through the gunwale.

Use high quality sandpaper. It's a bliss to work with and in the end a cost saving point since quality paper will last much longer and yield a better result and will do so faster. I used festool paper for most of my build and was very impressed when comparing it to the cheapo stuff. The Festool papers cut much faster (even at finer grits) and lasted 10x as long as the no-name cheapo stuff.

 

[Robin]

“Given one rib, I could build a canoe around it – that's no problem.” — Rollin Thurlow

I bet he could build a canoe from one rib. This was my biggest basket case.

 

[Cruiser]

"I don't want to spend the money on expensive or hard-to-find cedar/ash/mahogany/brass/copper/canvas/filler/whatever."

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I first decided to build a canoe, was sourcing materials, especially wood. Finding good places to get those materials at a reasonable or less expensive price takes some time and legwork .... this won't be a "common project". If you intend on getting into this a as a hobby and considering more than 1 boat, the first one can be considered a learning experience and using alternate materials may make sense depending on what level of experience you have. If you plan on a single boat and are asking this question, make a realistic "bill of materials", look it over and if you don't want to spend the money, just walk away. If it doesn't scare you off, then start that search for materials, my first wood source took almost 4 months to find and that was by accident.

- "I don't have all those fancy forms, strongbacks, table saws, band saws, circular saws, routers, sanding machines, clamps, pulleys, come-alongs, whatever."

The strongback materials are fairly inexpensive and none of the tools are fancy .... drill, ROS, router/router table, skill saw, clamps (lots of clamps 3" spring clamps are my go to). These items are often on sale, if you don't have them, be patient and acquire them as you can.

- "I don't have a shop in my house."

Not required, I build in a small 1 car garage and do OK


- "I'm busy and have a family and don't have hundreds of hours to spend on a big project like a canoe."

You're correct, walk away ... a project like this take commitment

 

[Alan Gage]

Buying cedar can be frustrating. In our small town we're fortunate to have a good lumber yard. They don't carry any cedar suitable for canoe building but they can order it in.

If I order "A" grade cedar from them I'll get boards that are perfectly clear and planed on both sides to 3/4". This is beautiful wood and often has nice color variation but it's expensive and some pieces will be quarter sawn, which is not ideal. It's usually not what I get.

What I usually order is "D" grade, which I find to be about perfect for canoe building. These boards will be nearly clear but not quite. There are no large knots but rather each board will usually have only a couple pin knots. There is very little waste. These are 7/8" thick but are only planed on one side. Almost 100% of the boards will be flat sawn and the cost is much cheaper than "A" grade.

Unfortunately actually getting what you order can be difficult. It's not uncommon for my local yard to order "D" grade but receive "grade 3" (knotty construction lumber). In this case they can always send it back and and get it swapped.

I think many lumberyards, when they hear "D grade," assume you're referring to low quality knotty cedar (grade 3).

Generally construction lumber uses numbers (1-3) and interior finish lumber uses letters (A-D) and there is no correlation between the two ("grade 2" and "B grade" look nothing alike)

Alan

 

[Cruiser]

My first cedar (WRC) came from a specialty supplier near me, it was beautiful, clear and quite expensive, even then that was $140 ... now I go to a very small yard up north of me, last canoe used $85 worth of perfect white cedar.
There seems to be a lot of smaller mills today, the issue is trying to find them .... I literally spent months tracking down wood sources, this information is "gold" once you have it.

I am not afraid of a few knots, stabilize them with epoxy and they make a nice addition to the wooden landscape IMO.

I have access to white cedar (for which I am grateful) which is arguably one of the best canoe woods, but that doesn't make it the only wood suitable for your build. Like any building material, you source something that is compatible with the project, the trick to this is having a good handle on what you want the finished product to be. That and learn that the "WoodDataBase" is your free friend for species info (with a tiny grain of salt).